> [Historical note: C was first implemented on the GE 635, a 36 bit word> addressed machine with a very complex instruction set that could also> handle 9 bit bytes. -John]

I think the PDP-11 came first however the GE635 went through an neat
character evolution. Most of its early software used 6 bit character 6
to a word and then when case specific characters started to be used
they were allocated 4 nine bit characters to a word.

Regards
--
Walter Banks
Byte Craft Limitedhttp://www.bytecraft.com
[The 36 bit machines were all follow-ons to the very successful IBM 704X
and 709X series which had 36 bit words and 6 bit characters. By the early
1960s it was clear that 6 bits wasn't enough. GE hard-coded 6 and 9 bit
bytes in the 635 instruction set, DEC allowed arbitrary bytes in the PDP-6
and -10, and I'm not sure what the Univax 110X series did, but we're pretty
far from compiler design now. -John]